One rat in the coop: should I decon?

[MissGreenJeans]

Hi, wise chicken friends! I’d love your 2 cents about a first for me: a rat coop intruder.

I have a small-ish coop and 7 chickens. I modified the coop with a crazy amount of thick hardware cloth and thought I’d made it virtually impenetrable. No holes anywhere wider than 1/4 inch. (I’ll put a light in there tonight to confirm, but I’m pretty sure it’s super tight.) I think a rat may have hopped into the coop when the door was open late yesterday and gotten trapped in there when I closed up the girls for the night. I found him huddled in a corner at the top of the coop this morning, looking horrified. He’d shredded the screens on the inside of the coop windows, as if trying to escape, but he couldn’t get through the hardware cloth on the outside. I looked around the coop inside and out but found no entry/exit points. I opened the door again and banged on the roof, and he fled through the door, seeming much relieved to get out of there!

With that background out of the way, here’s my question: do I need to deep-clean and decontaminate the coop? Naturally, I just did a clean-out two days ago and would hate to do another one right away, but the rat was hanging out in there all night. I see no feces or urine and don’t want to go overboard…. How much should I worry about diseases and/or parasites? What would YOU do after discovering a lone rat intruder?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[NatJ]

Personally, I wouldn't bother doing anything.

(Except that I would check several more times, to be sure whether there are any rat-sized entry holes.)

 

[dawg53]

Where there is one rat, there are others. Rat droppings are oblong shaped, 1/4 inch long and dark in color.
If you didnt see any droppings inside the coop you are lucky. It would be best to buy a bait box and bait it with "Just One Bite" poison bait and set it outside your pen, up against the pen. The rat(s) will eat the poison and go off and die in their nests several days later.
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/tomcat-rat-bait-station?cm_vc=-10005
https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=ee2ab972-97ad-4344-87b3-139363a41e3e&itemguid=043d1156-c1f6-4972-995f-d5c99193475f&sfb=1&grp=6000&grpc=6100&grpsc=6110&sp=f&utm_content=20878&ccd=IBSF0001&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=shopping&msclkid=982b4ec82c3d12862b112c0fdd90d8de&utm_campaign=FCAT Livestock Equip Supp (6000) MLGPM Smart PLA (IBSF0001)&utm_term=4585169651768078

 

[Henhouse Harlot]

Rats usually go after chicken feed,
Is the feed secured in metal containers? Do you remove all feed at night..?
Good luck!

 

[RoyalChick]

Look for every possible entry point and seal it up. Look for tunnels in the outside.
I wouldn’t do an extra cleaning - put your energy into exclusion!

 

[Henhouse Harlot]

@RoyalChick agreed!

 

[MissGreenJeans]

Personally, I wouldn't bother doing anything.

(Except that I would check several more times, to be sure whether there are any rat-sized entry holes.)

Thanks, NatJ!

 

[MissGreenJeans]

Where there is one rat, there are others. Rat droppings are oblong shaped, 1/4 inch long and dark in color.
If you didnt see any droppings inside the coop you are lucky. It would be best to buy a bait box and bait it with "Just One Bite" poison bait and set it outside your pen, up against the pen. The rat(s) will eat the poison and go off and die in their nests several days later.
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/tomcat-rat-bait-station?cm_vc=-10005
https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=ee2ab972-97ad-4344-87b3-139363a41e3e&itemguid=043d1156-c1f6-4972-995f-d5c99193475f&sfb=1&grp=6000&grpc=6100&grpsc=6110&sp=f&utm_content=20878&ccd=IBSF0001&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=shopping&msclkid=982b4ec82c3d12862b112c0fdd90d8de&utm_campaign=FCAT Livestock Equip Supp (6000) MLGPM Smart PLA (IBSF0001)&utm_term=4585169651768078

Good point. :-/ I live out in the country, and I bet there are a whole bunch of those little (and sometimes not so little) buggers. I looked hard and didn’t find any droppings—but I’ll go ahead and set up a trap. Thanks for the response!

 

[MissGreenJeans]

Rats usually go after chicken feed,
Is the feed secured in metal containers? Do you remove all feed at night..?
Good luck!

Feed’s only in the run, never the coop. It’s not in metal, though. It’s in hanging plastic feeders that I take inside every evening and replace again in the morning, not wanting to attract critters at night. I’m also careful to remove eggs right away…so I wonder if my rat friend originally got into the run to find feed the girls may have knocked out of the feeders and then decided to explore the coop at the wrong moment—right when I came out and closed the girls up for the night… The only attractive things inside the coop would be the chickens themselves (and maybe chicken poop)?

 

[MissGreenJeans]

Look for every possible entry point and seal it up. Look for tunnels in the outside.
I wouldn’t do an extra cleaning - put your energy into exclusion!

Thanks for the advice RoyalChick! Will focus on that instead!